The following is the message I delivered at New Hope at the memorial service of my friend and New Hope family member William (Bill) Standifer III. Bill was an amazing man who blessed a lot of people by just being who he was. It was an honor to share these thoughts at the service. I'm thankful I will get the opportunity one day to see Bill again.
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does
the Lord require of you? To act
justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8 (NIV)
I chose that Scripture to use today because to me, it fits
the man we are here to remember.
It’s hard to believe we are here today. Not that anyone
expected Bill to live forever, no one does, here. But having known him for
years and having seen the iron discipline he practiced at the table – “I want
the tilapia with no seasoning – none. I want salad but no dressing, no cheese,
no croutons…” I guess I was believing
that the engineer was working the process well enough that he’d be here a good
while longer. So when the events of the last few weeks began, and the dominos
kept falling, we all prayed as hard as we knew how. At the end he just slipped
away from us or maybe more appropriately, he flew behind above the cloud cover.
I know this, he fought as hard as he could. He had said “I’m a fighter pilot.
We don’t quit until the bullets are striking the cockpit.” His love for his
sweetheart and his family was so strong. But while the will was strong, his
equipment just failed. And now we are here, today.
I sat down with Terry and Harriet last Sunday to talk about
what would happen today, and while we did just that, they did a lot more for
me. They went back and charted
Bill’s life all the way from his birth in Eufaula, Alabama to the end. They
shared their hearts with me, and I learned a lot more about the man we remember
today. I’m going to share some of what I learned today, because I think it will
help many of us put today in perspective. And
I think looking at the route Bill plotted for himself and for his family might
help us make better decisions about the paths we are on.
Alright, so everyone knows a few fundamentals of navigation-
on a map, north is always up, the sun rises in the east, and compasses usually
point towards magnetic north. What you lack is the knowledge that for many is
the hardest to get- where you are. If you know where you are, and where you are
going, then all you need is a true reference point to triangulate on and you
are set. Let’s take that basic knowledge and use it here today.
The first thing you would know about Bill Standifer is that
he knew where he was. From Eufala, to Atlanta, through Georgia Tech and out
with a degree in electrical engineering, Bill never forgot who he was. A lot of
people do, you know. But Bill had
brought with him his faith in God and he had been blessed to find the one true
love of his life – his beloved Harriet.
Most of us who know them think of them together, say their names
together, because they were as truly One as anyone we are likely to ever
know. They were going together when he
was 18 and she was 17, after he started out dating Harriet’s sister. He soon
corrected that mistake and always made the point that “I got the better
sister.” The Scripture said “to act justly.” Bill did, by making and honoring
commitments again and again and again throughout his life. If he said he would
do something, you could take it to the bank. So his pledge to “love, to honor,
to cherish, until death do us part” was only the last one he lived up to.
The commitment to serve his country was one he certainly
fulfilled. He was only going to be in for five years, but once he got into
fighters, he met his other passion –flying. And from then on until his
retirement the couple’s path began to take them to places all over the world. I
absolutely loved hearing Harriet tell about the days a young family spent “living like the locals” in England, driving
all over Europe in an Austin Healey, weekend flights to Paris and back for $25
round trip, and their Europe on $5 a day adventures. What a life! When they
came back to the States even Terry was a proper English lad who wowed his chums
at school when he told them “my dad eats snakes, flies fighter planes, and we
just got here from England.” Skeptics were converted when every word turned out
to be true. I suspect that wasn’t the only time someone heard about the life
Bill, Harriet, Ross, Terry, and Chip had together and wondered if it all could
be true. But it was.
“To act justly, and love mercy…”
I grew up in a family of veterans. My father and mother both
served in the Pacific during WW2. My father say a lot of combat with the 24th
infantry division and my mother got to Australia, the Philippines, and Okinawa.
Neither wanted to talk about what they saw.
The only thing I ever got was that “It’s not like the movies, son.” I can’t imagine what Bill saw during his time
in the service, but with 100 missions in the Vietnam War where 382 F-4s were
lost in combat, and were running at 40% of aircraft during the first couple of
years flying out of Thailand, I know he lost many friends while carrying out
his missions. Harriet told me there were
some songs that were played at the funerals in chapel she still didn’t like to
hear. So I suspect there was a lot he didn’t care to talk about either. He was
true to his oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign or
domestic though, believing that giving the Vietnamese people a chance to make
their own choices about freedom was the right thing to do. Here at home Harriet
did what she could to raise the boys and waited for her love to return. And he
always did.
The family lived the transient life of a military family
while stateside, bouncing from assignment to assignment back and forth across
the nation. Everywhere they lived, Bill and Harriet tried to help the boys see
it as a great adventure. It surely must have been. Terry told me that those
ants his dad ate – well while camping Bill shared that knowledge with the boys.
“They taste like cherries” is what Terry told me, but he did say to make sure
to get the biggest ants you could find.
Bill would find a way to get an adventure started wherever they were. At
Nellis it was hunting for rocks and at Hill it was skiing and hunting for
fossils. He taught the boys how to work on cars, and a lot more.
The end of his Air Force career came sooner than Bill would
have liked it to. He had hoped to get a squadron of his own, but the glut of
qualified people meant a lot of good men had to leave and Bill left as a Lt.
Colonel. There were people at Hill that
were upset about his being passed over, and some were upset about Bill not
getting his “last flight” in his beloved F-16. They didn’t know that Bill had
already taken his last flight. For those of you not familiar, a last flight is
where a retiring aviator can take their plane up and pretty much do whatever
they want until the gas runs out. I’ve seen a couple of those and they are
spectacular. Aileron rolls the length of the runway, pulling back on the stick,
standing the plane on its tail going straight up out of sight, or cutting the
pylons in the parking lot – most are flashy look at me events. Bill’s last
flight would have seen tame to those folks, but for him it was the most
exciting flight he could imagine. He flew to Enid Oklahoma , to Vance AFB where
Ross was stationed and pinned his wings on. That was Bill. He gave himself
away.
Decorated Pilot, instructor pilot, test director, he moved
into the next phase of his life, a stint at Eglin running the test wing and
then a short retirement and a long career with Wintec. I was interested in how that transition went
from a sociological point of view. Fighter pilots always seemed to have a
certain worldview that sometimes didn’t play well with others. But Bill by this
point had a path traced clearly of giving himself away. No surprise then that he went on there to
have an accomplished record spanning 20 years, or that the people he worked
with became more than coworkers, as we can see by their attendance here today.
Bill made people better – made them want to be better. His
quiet confidence made you feel as though if he believed you could do something
then darn it, you could do it. Harriet talked about her decision to by a plane
and learn to fly, and how she had doubts, but Bill would have none of it. She
said “Bill gave me the confidence to do things I never would have done.” I
could sure understand why someone would feel that way. I know that when we
would be over in the fellowship hall on Wednesday nights, we’d get into some
spirited discussions about one point or another and Bill wouldn’t say a word.
But you could tell he was taking it all in. From my point of view, I felt he
was giving me his respect while quietly encouraging me to bring the Truth to
target. To where we live. He could be a tough audience there, but quick to
laugh over lunch.
The last few years he spent a lot of time with his beloved
grandchildren, sharing with them the things he loved to do – flying, shooting,
riding roller coasters. He loved his family, was very proud of every one of
them. I know having all boys might have seemed to some a loss but Bill always
said the best way to have girls in the family was for your sons to marry them,
and he was very thankful for his daughters in law. In return, you got a long up
close and personal look at just what marriage is supposed to be. “For this
cause a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the
two shall become one flesh.” Terry told me that his Mom and dad “ didn't tell us
how to live – they showed us.”
Yes they did.
I started out pointing out that “If you know where you are,
and where you are going, then all you need is a true reference point to
triangulate on and you are set.”
Let me finish quickly by pointing out this: Bill knew where
he was. Because he was grounded by his parents as their only son, and shown the
love of God early and often, Bill knew exactly where he was.
Bill knew where he was going. Whether it was winning the
love of his life, raising three fine men, carving out a dream career as a fighter
pilot, helping Wintec – Bill had a plan and he worked it. Well, so did God.
There were many times in his life that except for God’s grace he could have
been taken.
Even in probably his deepest felt loss – not getting the squadron
command he had worked for – God was at work.
You see Bill had a heart attack at
work. But his doctor was minutes away and the help he needed was readily
available – which they would not have been had he still been in the Air Force.
Bill got some extra years. Many of us got a blessing from those years. And as
the end drew near, Bill knew where he was going. The Bible records Jesus saying
“I go to prepare a place for you.” I wonder what hangar Bill is operating out
of now.
He knew where he was and where he was going and he had that
one point to triangulate from. God’s love and the arms of his sweetheart. Those
arms had to let him go, but God never will.
Can I encourage you today to examine where your flight plan
is taking you? To really take a look at just what you are using as your fixed
reference point? To weigh what you are committed to against how much those
commitments really ultimately matter.
